AUSTIN — Denver is the latest city to be on the receiving end of Texas’ migrant bus program.
Gov. Greg Abbott announced the new destination on Thursday.
“Until the president and his administration step up and fulfill their Constitutional duty to secure the border, the state of Texas will continue busing migrants to self-declared sanctuary cities like Denver to provide much-needed relief to our small border towns,” Abbott said.
Abbott launched the migrant bus program in April 2022, when talks of the ending of Title 42 began. Title 42 is the pandemic-era emergency rule that allowed U.S. immigration authorities to expel migrants and asylum seekers due to public health concerns related to COVID-19. It was officially lifted on May 12, 2023.
The bus program is available to individuals who have been cleared by border patrol to roam the country and have voluntarily taken advantage of the program that moves them across the country at no charge to the migrant.
Prior to the arrival of the Texas bus, Denver was already seeing an influx in migrants, its mayor Michael B. Hancock said. Hancock said earlier this week he and the mayors of New York City, Los Angeles and Houston wrote a letter to President Joe Biden asking him to meet to talk about the issue of increased migrants in their community, adding that “Denver cannot continue to financially shoulder the burden of this humanitarian crisis alone.”
“Our residents shouldn’t lose the services and resources they depend on and pay for with their tax dollars because Congress and the federal government are failing to do their job,” Hancock said.
Since the program launched in April 2022, Texas has sent buses to Washington, D.C., New York City, Chicago and Philadelphia filled with more that 19,000 migrants, state officials said.